BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

Tetrady not as good as all the hype

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

butterfinger What a godforsaken waste of a brilliant subject for a documentary! Commenting on the conflict between tradition and modern trends, Lucy Walker's The Devil's Playground is about Amish teenagers who get into drugs, drinking, and hardcore partying. And would you believe me if I told you that it is one of the most gutless and incompetent documentaries I have ever seen? All I can say is, the fear of seeing a movie this terrible ever again brings me one step closer to wanting to join a culture devoid of the presence of the media. This film is so muddled that it randomly examines a handful of characters while cutting to an old Amish man yapping about teenagers and peer pressure; when it gets bored with the old man, it goes back to one of the teenagers and when it gets bored with that teenager, it jumps to another one. There is no sense of emotional flow, pacing, or structure. Lucy Walker can't even engage us moment-by-moment, constantly adding corny music like a documentary-soap-opera. She is so technically incompetent that she goes for a moment of (cheap) emotional impact with a character while a gargantuan locomotive blasts by a hundred feet behind him.Sometimes the material is engaging despite Walker but that is rare… Oh, and then there's Faron-I can't wait to talk about Faron. Faron is a moronic Amish teenager who is bewildered as to whether he should move back to the family farm and live the Amish or if he should continue living in a trailer and have constant parties. Faron is a drug addict whose life is a mess of small ups and big downs. However, Lucy Walker must be dumber than Faron if she doesn't realize what a mess his life is and treats every up and down like an exciting new story development: Faron is in deep trouble with drug dealers for ratting on his friend and his girlfriend leaves him! (Sad music.) Faron skips town, plans to become Amish again, gets a job working for his father, and gets a new girlfriend! (Happy music.) Faron's girlfriend dumps him, his father fires him, and he moves back into his old trailer and starts getting drunk regularly! (Sad music) Faron goes to find ex-girlfriend to get back together with her and gets a new job! (Happy music) Faron crashes his car on his way to work and loses his job! (Sad music) Faron gets a job as a parking lot attendant and has some vague plans of going back to farm someday! Every single one of these plot revelations is treated melodramatically. And then the film just ends on an up-note (the great parking lot gig) without even considering the possibility that things will go badly later on. What about the guy that Faron ratted on? When he gets out of prison, won't he be angry? All he'll have to do to find out where Faron-the-moron is hiding is to watch The Devil's Playground. But that will prove to be an unbearable task indeed. Footnote: In this mess of a film there is one compelling facet: it is able to explain why a teenager would want to be Amish-an incredibly impressive achievement in the middle of an incredibly horrendous disaster.

inferno_ears I never knew about 'Rumspringn', and i have always loved the Amish culture. After seeing this documentary, i often wonder if i'm running into Amish guys in the malls and other places. I no longer wish to be Amish. But the thing that does stand out to me is how receptive the Amish church is to the kids that come back. I mean you've got all these other 'Christian' religions that shun people when they've sined and want to come back. but the Amish tell the kids, as long as you stop doing what you've been doing, you're not only welcomed back, but loved and accepted. THAT is how its supposed to be.I hope they maybe follow up to it and find out how everyone is doing.

Yaniv Eidelstein this film is based around a fascinating subject; the amish custom of allowing every boy or girl who turns sixteen to do anything he or she pleases, no holds barred. apparently, the amish believe it is wrong to baptise infants, and that they're supposed to choose the amish way as free-thinking adults.the opening titles explaining this raised my expectations, as did the movie poster: an image of a girl in an amish bonnet, sitting in the back seat of a car, lighting a cigarette. it felt like a stolen moment; like an exciting departure from everything she's been taught. what would teens like this do, give free rein for the first time in their lives? what would it feel like to taste the things that were always off limits?well according to this movie, amish teenagers are just as debauched as anyone in western society; they have no qualms about doing anything at all; nothing seems exciting or new to them. they're just relieved that their nuisance parents are out of the way so that they can finally get on with their partying, driving and drugging.and how do the parents feel about allowing their children to turn their backs on every value they ever taught them? that would be a challenging concept to any parent, let alone one in a supposedly closed, puritanical society. well, we'll never know, as the amish refuse to be filmed or photographed.stripped of all the interesting questions, this remains a slick docu-soap in the mtv "real world" tradition, with no insights to offer; just a peek into the lives of a few amish teens, who may or may not be examples of anything larger than themselves.

utahfilmmaker I thought for sure that a movie about Amish-teenagers-gone-bad would be a series of images of Amish kids dressed in traditional garb drinking, getting high, and sleeping around. I expected it to be a spectacle which would get old fast, and I went into the movie with this bias. It turned out to be one of the best documentaries I've seen in a while. For one thing, the director had the perfect balance of showing a broad social situation (rebellious Amish kids in general) and a more character centered story (the drug addicted Amish youth Faron). You're getting the factual information you need, as well as the emotional punch of what Faron is going through. The director is able to show very clearly the effect of Amish society on these kids without ever forcing a direct connection or being exploitative.